About SABASABA is an iconic Australian brand renowned for intelligent design, premium quality, and timeless style. Now in its 60th year, we are on an exciting journey to reposition and elevate our brand. With 19 stores and a growing ecommerce
presence, we are investing in our people, product, and stores to reinforce our premium positioning.
As we look to the future, product and design sits at the centre of our transformation. Our collections balance
aesthetic elevation with functionality, quality, and value. Designed to move with you, SABA’s wardrobe foundations transcend trends and deliver versatility across every day and every destination. We are seeking a strategic, visionary, and operationally agile Head of Design to lead this next chapter across both womenswear and menswear.
Role Overview
As Head of Design, you will lead and elevate the seasonal product direction across all categories. This role sets the creative vision, delivers commercial alignment, and leads the design team in bringing to life the brand’s core
messages: Modern Tailoring, Style That Moves With You, and Style That Lasts.
You will play a pivotal role in developing a modern wardrobe with the power to change the way we feel. You will deliver cohesive and contemporary collections that balance newness with continuity, drive innovation in design and materials, and continuously optimise our ways of working with global suppliers to ensure agility, quality, and value.
The ideal candidate will bring a confident creative point of view, modernise our approach while respecting our design DNA, and lead our product and team with clarity, collaboration, and commercial awareness.
Key Responsibilities
1. Creative Direction and Brand Alignment
- Oversee delivery of cohesive, contemporary collections with a strong creative point of view.
- Set seasonal direction across colour, fabric, silhouette, and print.
- Lead the design narrative to reflect SABA’s unique positioning and campaign strategy.
- Develop capsule collections and seasonal highlights that express our brand pillars through product.
- Partner with Marketing to ensure storytelling reflects the SABA man and woman’s lifestyle: desk to
- dinner, boardroom to boarding gate, office to escape.
- Champion intelligent design and quality craftsmanship that builds brand trust and reinforces our timeless style.
2. Product Strategy and Commercial Focus
- Align product development with sales goals, category growth targets, and margin objectives.
- Balance continuity styles with innovation, delivering newness that resonates with our modern professional and style hunter audiences.
- Lead design strategy across key categories such as dresses, tailoring, outfitting, and knitwear.
- Deliver versatile investment pieces that work harder and last longer.
3. Process Improvement and Innovation
- Introduce efficient tools and systems to improve design speed, sample accuracy, and team workflow.
- Work closely with Product Development and Supply Chain to optimise critical path.
- Lead sourcing conversations with partners, driving margin, innovation, and speed-to-market.
- Embed sustainable and responsible practices into design thinking.
- Lead a culture of continuous improvement driven by process and product innovation.
4. Cross Functional Collaboration
- Collaborate with Buying and Planning to ensure range clarity, commercial intent, and customer relevance.
- Align with Marketing and VM to ensure product storytelling is consistent across all channels.
- Work closely with Ecommerce and Retail to enhance the in-store and online presentation of the range.
- Support product-related initiatives such as accessories development, exclusive capsules, and retail experiences.
5. Team Leadership & Culture
- Lead a high-performing, organised and aligned design team across both womenswear and menswear.
- Provide clear direction, feedback, and coaching to enable confident execution.
- Maintain a lean, efficient structure while developing internal capability.
- Foster a culture of creativity, curiosity, and collaboration.
Key Attributes and Capabilities
- Strong creative point of view grounded in commercial logic.
- 15+ years experience across luxury and advanced contemporary fashion.
- Experience designing both womenswear and menswear collections.
- International experience will be highly favourable.
- Multi-category expertise including tailoring, fabrication, knitwear, and outfitting.
- Strong sourcing capability and global vendor management.
- Considered, intentional leadership with a passion for style that moves with you.
- Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration skills.
- Ability to inspire, influence, and lead through change.
Success Measures
- On-time delivery of seasonal ranges within margin targets.
- Sell-through and weeks-of-cover improvement.
- Growth in key categories aligned with strategy.
- Increased full price sales mix.
- Reduced sampling and design-to-delivery lead times.
- Strengthened supplier relationships and margin outcomes.
- High design team engagement and retention.
- Alignment of product to brand promise and campaign strategy.
Where do I sign?
As part of the APG family you'll enjoy plenty of exiting rewards and benefits.
- 50% discount on all brands
- True work / life balance
- Birthday leave
- Culture Club - monthly social events, monthly morning tea and more
- An Employee Assistance Program for you and your family
- Paid Parental Leave
- Recognition and Service awards
- Employee Referral Program
Style your career in a new direction â apply now and join our talented team.
